Shadows of the Light
by maybewesortoosoon
Summary: Remus and Sirius sort through some old snapshots. One photograph brings it all rushing to the surface.


Sirius glared at the various posters tacked up on the wall. They symbolised so much of what he had hated about this house and its former occupants. He had hung the posters up as an act of rebellion. At least I don't fancy the girls up on the wall, he thought mirthlessly to himself. He curled up tightly under the blankets.

The house was still when he woke up. Everyone was out - either at work, or doing something or other for the Order.

"Lucky fools," Sirius muttered to himself, somewhat bitterly.

He rolled over onto his side, allowing himself to stew in his own misery.

He was interrupted by a knock on the door. In different times, he probably would have ignored it, and done his best to go back to sleep, but such luxuries were lifetimes in the past, and Sirius had only experienced them briefly, for what amounted to a nanosecond in the grand scheme of things.

He walked slowly down the stairs, not bothering to pull anything over what he was wearing. He'd fallen asleep in the clothes he had worn the previous day, and the only reason he had changed the day before that was it had been the day that Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys had gone back to Hogwarts.

"I'm coming!" he called out grumpily, as the knocking grew louder and more insistent.

"Oh, it's you," he mumbled when he found Remus standing on the doorstep of Grimmauld Place.

Remus felt a fleeting stab of nostalgia at Sirius' lack-lustre greeting.

"What's in the box?" Sirius enquired, gesturing towards the box that Remus had brought with him.

Remus stayed silent, setting the box down on the kitchen table with a sigh.

"It's the stuff you left in your flat. I figured that I should give it to you."

"About time," Sirius responded coldly. "Given that you've had two years to return all of this."

Remus ignored Sirius' jibe. "Want any help sorting that out?" he asked calmly.

Sirius shoulders stiffened for a moment. "If it makes you feel better."

Sirius picked up the box and stalked off, making his way up to his bedroom.

Remus stared at Sirius' disappearing figure, and took a deep breath, hurrying after him.

Sirius sat on the floor in his bedroom. One would've thought it was a time-bomb, the way Sirius was looking at it. But maybe it was, given the emotions attached to the items contained inside the box.

Remus knocked gently on the door before opening it. "Going to let that sit there and rot, or are you going to open it?" he asked, deliberately trying to keep his voice neutral.

Sirius exhaled gustily, and pried the lid of the wooden box open. On the top lay a considerable amount of newspaper. Sirius smiled a little. "At least Lily made sure it wouldn't totally go to waste."

"Yeah, well, if she left you and James to it, everything would've been crammed in, and probably in pieces by now."

Sirius grinned briefly. "You weren't always as organised as you are now, Remus."

"Touche." Remus acknowledged.

The two sat together on the floor, looking through the old photographs.

"Makes you miss those times, eh, Moo- Remus?"

"Yeah." Remus responded softly, well aware of the real meaning behind Sirius' question.

"When we were-" Sirius' voice broke momentarily. "Together, it made it so much better. But now..." Sirius sighed and pressed his lips together.

"It made it easier, didn't it?" Remus empathised. "We were happier back then. I mean, there was a war going on, but well, even when James and Lily went into hiding, it was still not quite in the forefront of our minds. I read somewhere, something-"

Sirius cut him off. "Of course you did. I'd be worried if you weren't reading."

"It was called A Wizard of Earthsea. Written by a woman named Ursula K. Le Guin."

"Nice name."

"It is rather fanciful, isn't it?" Remus mused. "Anyway, one of my favourite lines in it is: "To light a candle is to cast a shadow." It means that good can't exist without evil, that there will always be both in the world. It just depends on what outweighs the other at the time. Guess good outweighed evil the first time around."

Sirius snorted. "Was practically sunshine and daisies back then. Not these days." His fingers shook as he looked as a photo of them - the Marauders, at the end of their seventh year. He glanced down at the photograph, of the four boys smiling and waving at the camera, before violently tearing it up. He threw the pieces across the room, and stood up, kicking the box.

"I hate him!" Sirius exploded. "How could he do that? We were friends," he spat the word out, "for seven years! And the snivelling git threw it all away. He did more than that - he killed them. Killed the people who gave a damn about him!" Sirius roared. He turned back to face Remus. "If we win, if I ever get a chance to get my hands on that traitor, I'll torture him to death myself."

The insane glint returned to Sirius' eyes, the one born from long years spent in Azkaban, the same one that had been in his eyes that night in the Shrieking Shack, the night they'd managed to confront Peter.

Sirius clenched his shaking fists, laughing wildly. "And I say he killed them. It was my fault, Remus, don't you see?" he screamed, pulling desperately at his hair.

"Sirius, you didn't know. None of us would have suspected Peter."

"But everyone suspected me. Everyone believed it of me. If I hadn't been so self-doubting, if I had only trusted myself, for once in my life, then Lily and James would still be alive. And my godson wouldn't be so royally screwed up. And-"

"Sirius, stop it," Remus' voice was steely. Sirius imagined it was the same voice Remus had used on his students at Hogwarts. "Sirius, if you think that any of us believed those accusations instantly, then you're dead wrong. And as for wanting to kill Peter, don't you think Harry was right about it? James would want Peter to be locked up, but he wouldn't want him to be dead. At least, not at the hands of his true friends, namely, you or I. He valued every human's life, especially towards the end."

"He was a better person than me, wasn't he?" Sirius whispered.

Remus blinked a little at the question. "In death, yes. In life, you were just as bad as each other."

* * *

_A/N: Written for:_

_ Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition (Beater 1, Ballycastle Bats). Prompts used: 5. "When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow." ― Ursula K. Le Guin, and 9. "We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving." ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows._

_Doctor Who Appreciation Competition - Adam Mitchell: Write about someone being punished for wrong-doing._

_A Jury of Your Peers Competition: Angst._


End file.
